Sarah Palin is telling African-Americans that they don’t know what
the word slavery means. Palin reacted to her use of the term slavery by
saying that people are misinterpreting her.

TAPPER: So, you obviously feel very passionate about the national
debt. The other day, you gave a speech in which you compared it to
slavery.
PALIN: To slavery. Yes.
And that’s not a racist thing to do, by the way, which I know somebody is going to claim it is.
TAPPER: Don’t you ever fear that by using hyperbole like that —
obviously, you don’t literally mean it’s like slavery, which cost
millions of people their lives and there was rape and torture. You’re
using it as a metaphor.
But don’t you ever worry that by using that kind of language, you — you risk obscuring the point you’re trying to make?
PALIN: There is another definition of slavery and that is being
beholden to some kind of master that is not of your choosing. And, yes,
the national debt will be like slavery when the note comes due.
TAPPER: So you’re not — you’re not work — I mean I’m — I’m taking it
as a no, but you’re not — you’re not concerned about the language —
PALIN: I’m not one to be politically correct, evidently.
TAPPER: OK.
PALIN: And, no, I don’t — I don’t worry about things like that,
because no matter what I say, no matter what a lot of conservatives say,
they’re, you know, they’ll be targeted and distractions will be
attempted to be made to take the listener and the viewers’ mind off what
the point is, by pointing out, oh, she said the word slavery in a
speech, and, I did say the word slavery, because I want to make a point.
TAPPER: You can understand why African-Americans or others might be offended by it, though?
PALIN: I — I can if they choose to misinterpret what it is that I’m
saying. And, again, you know, I’m sure if we open up the dictionary, we
could prove that with semantics that are various, we can prove that
there is a definition of slavery that absolutely fits the bill there,
when I’m talking about a bankrupt country that will owe somebody
something down the line if we don’t change things that is, we will be
shackled. We will be enslaved to those who we owe.

According to Webster’s Dictionary,
slavery as a noun means, “the state of being a slave :the practice of
owning slaves.” There is no meaning of slavery as Palin described it in
the interview. All the definitions of slavery are related to owning
other human beings as property.
Sarah Palin seems absolutely unaware of the fact that a white person
telling African-Americans that they misinterpreted the term slavery
reeks of both white privilege and racism. Palin is an example of the
Republican Party’s attitude towards minorities. She doesn’t care if the
use of the term slavery offends people. In fact, she probably hopes that
it will offend people so that she will get even more attention.
Republicans are always trying to diminish slavery by comparing their
own plight of maybe having to pay higher taxes, or the bills that our
government ran up as slavery. The truth is that these things have
nothing in common with slavery. The debt does not mean that the American
people are literally shackled with no human rights. Paying the debt
does not make Republicans property.
The legacy of slavery is alive and well in much of the racism that we
see in our country today. The sort of racism that Sarah Palin has
repeatedly used against President Obama.
All Americans know what Sarah meant, and her attempt to blame
African-Americans and others for misinterpreting her only compounds the
racism.

Sarah Palin Tells African Americans That They Misinterpreted the Word Slavery was written by Jason Easley for PoliticusUSA.